RAUB: Persatuan Alam dan Warisan Bukit Fraser (PAWBF) is lobbying for the hill station in Pahang to be gazetted as a national heritage site to protect it against further development.
Its chairman Nik Jassmin Hew is hoping that the campaign succeeds in getting the hill in its entirety on the gazette, while also creating enough traction to save the 83,000ha Fraser's Hill forest complex.
"All the problems can be solved if the 2,000ha hill, its town area and structures as well as the forest complex here can be made a heritage site," she told the New Sunday Times in a telephone interview yesterday.
Nik Jassmin said PAWBF was also campaigning for the entire forest complex to be made a state park like the Royal Belum, which is being advocated by WWF-Malaysia.
"The main hurdle here is getting the state to sign off on these plans. Some years ago, an aca- demic drew up a proposal for it to be made into a national heritage site and submitted the paper to the National Heritage Department, but the state did not approve it."
She said the state could be against the proposal as applications for further development would become stricter and more complex once a location is gazetted as national heritage site.
"The state is protective of their land interests and their right to commercialise it, as they feel what is theirs is theirs instead of a national asset.
"However, we feel that without the place being listed as a national heritage site, the protection it gets is low. The Raub District Council is applying normal rules to an environmentally-sensitive area."
Nik Jassmin said PAWBF wanted the state to re-confer the area's special status by re-empowering the Fraser's Hill Development Corporation.
"It won't be something novel or far off from what it was back in the old days when Fraser's Hill was managed by the statutory body.
"They were once in charge of all matters regarding the hill, including council duties, but now the corporation is parked under Tourism Pahang and the council has taken over the local government affairs, so things have become messy."
She said the major stakeholder had years ago played a crucial role in preventing the demolition of the Temerloh Bungalow there.
As such, Nik Jassmin said bringing back the system where the corporation was the authority in the planning and development of the environmentally sensitive area.
Former deputy tourism, arts and culture minister Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik had in October 2018 pointed out that the biggest hurdle in gazetting areas as national heritage sites was getting states on board.
Malaysia has numerous sites identified as places with historical, cultural and archeological significance. However only a few have been gazetted as national heritage sites.
Some have also been on the pending list for more than a decade due to such constraints.